The Good Thief's Guide to Venice (11 page)

Then the door opened and I tumbled backwards.

Victoria was standing above me with her pink dressing gown open over her spotty pyjamas and my umbrella raised in her hand like a spear. She frowned at me, then bared her teeth and yelled words that I couldn’t hear in the slightest. I would have liked to have replied – come to mention it, I would have loved to have engaged in a long and detailed conversation. Only I couldn’t, so I did the next best thing and voiced my most pressing concern.

‘Don’t call for an ambulance,’ I told her.

She winced, as if I’d yelled savagely in her face. Perhaps I had.

‘Or the police,’ I went on, my volume a mystery to my ears. ‘In fact, don’t call anyone. Promise me.’

She planted her fists on her hips and glared at me. Tight-jawed, she offered me some carefully selected words, but even though I did my best to lip-read, somewhere in the middle of her inaudible monologue, my eyelids fluttered closed, my mind became as limp as my body, and I finally gave in to the overwhelming shock of it all.

It must have been the friction that brought me round – the rubbing of the parquet floor on my lower back. My arms were stretched far above me and the living room was sliding away in a jerking fashion. I rolled my eyes in my head and discovered that Victoria had a hold of my wrists. She was dragging me along the hall, and making hard work of it. Legs spread wide, with her slippers planted either side of my shoulders and the hem of her dressing gown skimming the floor, I could see from her flushed face and the way her eyes were squeezed tight shut that I was carrying a shade more weight than I might have preferred.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

She grimaced and heaved some more. My wet jeans bunched up around my bottom.

‘Let go,’ I told her. ‘I can move myself. You don’t have to drag me.’

She paused and scowled at me. Her lips started moving again. Spittle flew from them and I was pretty sure I could see sparks coming out of her ears. She reminded me of a mime – a particularly irate one.

‘Just let go of my arms.’

And blow me, she did. I hadn’t been ready for it. The back of my head struck the floor hard. I moaned and clutched at my temples as the blurred ceiling dropped down from above and bounced back up, like a yoyo on a string. I covered my eyes with my hands and peered out through my puffy fingers. The ceiling plunged down again, growing darker all the while, and then I passed right through it until I was lost altogether.

I woke to find myself in bed. Naked.

I couldn’t remember how I’d ended up between my sheets and I had no recollection whatsoever of undressing myself. I felt sickly cold, despite the heavy covers pressing down on me, and I was aware of an odd whistling in my ears, like the static from a badly tuned radio.

I cupped a hand over my left ear, but the whistling grew more intense, which suggested it was coming from inside my head. Not a good sign. Even worse, my palm came away spotted with blood.

I rubbed my fingers beneath my nose. Disinfectant. The scent was unmistakable, conjuring memories of playground accidents. I sniffed some more, and discovered that the skin on my face and arms was coated in the stuff, like an unwanted cologne. Raising my forearms, I considered the network of fine cuts and abrasions I found there, each of them weeping as I flexed my skin.

‘Do you think you might stay conscious this time?’

I recognised Victoria’s voice before I saw her. She was sitting in the chair in the corner of my room, huddled up inside her dressing gown, reading my manuscript in the light from a standing lamp with a fringed shade. I squinted against the pain the light was causing me. Squinting didn’t help – it just seemed to increase the pressure in my head and make my ears pop and crackle in a most disturbing manner.

‘I used the first-aid kit in your bathroom,’ she told me. ‘Dressed your wounds as best I could.’

‘I’m naked,’ I croaked, and the sound of my own voice was like fingernails running down a blackboard inside my head. ‘Completely … naked.’

She lowered my manuscript. ‘Staggering, isn’t it?’

I cradled my forehead and braced myself to speak again. ‘Where are my clothes?’ I asked, and while I did so, I tried very hard to recall climbing out of them.

‘In the washing machine. I didn’t think you’d thank me for putting you to bed sopping wet.’

Oh, boy.

‘
You
put me to bed?’

‘I’m afraid you were in no fit state to do it yourself. But don’t worry, I didn’t spend my time feasting my eyes on your body – what’s left of it, that is. Are you going to tell me what on earth happened to you?’

‘Maybe once Radio Italia stops broadcasting from inside my skull.’

Very carefully, I propped myself up on my elbows until my back was resting against the headboard. I pulled the blankets over my chest. It wasn’t simply out of modesty – I was still chilled to the core by my unexpected dip in the Grand Canal. Lord Byron would have been hugely disappointed in me – he’d viewed swimming in the lagoon as a major test of one’s manhood.

Speaking of manhood, I really would have preferred it if Victoria hadn’t seen me in the nude when I’d been flirting with the prospect of hypothermia. True enough, it was only a minor quibble in the context of the near-death experience I’d recently endured, but it was a concern all the same.

‘You’ll be glad to hear I didn’t call the police or an ambulance,’ she said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘God only knows why I listened to you. You were practically raving when you got back here, shouting at the top of your voice. For the past hour, you’ve been looking worse than a corpse.’

‘Charming.’

‘Want to know why I didn’t call anyone?’

I didn’t say anything to that. I couldn’t imagine there was anything fruitful to be said.

‘It’s because I’m assuming you’ve been up to no good. The balaclava and burglary tools I found in your coat gave it away somewhat.’

I didn’t say anything to that, either. I’m not quite as stupid as I might seem, and I was aware that our conversation had the potential to be almost as dangerous as the bomb blast I’d inadvertently triggered.

‘Look, you must realise that you’re going to have to offer me some kind of explanation, at least.’

I squirmed beneath my sheets. ‘It’s complicated, Vic.’

‘I had a feeling it might be.’

‘Maybe it’s best left until morning.’

‘It practically
is
morning. And knowing my luck, you’ll be unconscious again soon. Come on, spill.’

‘You really want me to?’

‘Oh, like you wouldn’t believe.’

And so I told Victoria everything. Well, not
absolutely
everything – I skipped over the details of my torrid, erotic dream, for instance – but other than that I was completely honest. I spoke in a halting, breathless voice for close to thirty minutes, without interruption, without questioning. If only I’d been in a church, it could have passed for a confession. Maybe it was, of sorts – a confession as to exactly how brainless I’d been.

And what happened? Well, Victoria walked straight out of my room. She did it without speaking and without even looking at me. I called after her, but to be perfectly frank, I couldn’t give it the gusto it deserved. I tried, naturally, but my throat wasn’t up to it yet – it still felt like it was lined with the dry ingredients for a cement mix.

Sliding down beneath my bedcovers, groaning pitifully to myself, I listened, where I could, to the sounds of Victoria moving about in her room. They weren’t the most encouraging noises imaginable. There was a lot of pacing, and a good deal of huffing, and the unmistakable sound of a suitcase zipper. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that she was packing her things – even I was capable of it.

‘Victoria,’ I called, my voice sounding faint and hopeless. ‘Don’t go. Stay with me. I’m sorry.’ I didn’t think she could hear me – I could barely hear myself. ‘Please don’t go,’ I added, but I might as well have tried communicating through the wall in sign language.

What on earth would I do if she did leave? I had no idea how long I’d be suffering from the after-effects of the explosion, and I really didn’t like the idea of being on my own. At the moment, a simple trip to the bathroom would mean crawling on my hands and knees, and the only thing I was capable of rustling up in the kitchen was a dramatic faint. More to the point, I was vulnerable.

The way I saw things, Graziella had been telling the truth – she really could tell if I opened the briefcase. Hell, come to mention it, most of Venice could tell. If she returned to the palazzo with Count Borelli, the gaping, smoking hole in the front of the building would give the game away somewhat, but even if she didn’t, the explosion would soon be the talk of the city. I supposed there was a chance that she might assume I’d been killed – which was a fate I couldn’t quite believe I’d avoided – but it wouldn’t take long until the witnesses who’d seen me tumble into the canal spoke to the press. And all right, I’d managed to swim to an unlit area and haul myself out of the freezing waters without being spotted (or so I hoped), but I really couldn’t imagine Graziella taking a chance on my having drowned.

Yes, there was a possibility that the police might interpret the bomb as a warning of some sort, or perhaps even a random act of terrorism. But I knew better. The idea must have been for the Count to find the case and open it. I’d been lucky, but I doubted he’d have been as fortunate. So I thought it fair to assume that there’d been a somewhat backward plot to kill the man – and at the very least, I could offer a good description of the woman behind it.

Three things struck me about all this:

1. Graziella knew where I lived.

2. She was capable of getting in without being heard.

3. I was incapable of defending myself.

Hardly a reassuring combination.

Then there was the fact I’d lied to Victoria. I didn’t relish thinking about how badly I’d let her down. She meant more to me than I could begin to express, though now seemed like a good time to try.

And so, with a reluctant grunt, I swung my legs out over the edge of the bed, clinched a sheet around my waist and dropped to my knees, then shuffled towards the doorway to my room in a most undignified manner.

The door seemed to tilt and pivot to the right. I leaned my head in the opposite direction but all I succeeded in doing was upsetting my balance. I fell onto my side with a thud, aggravating the cuts on my arm, and my yelp was enough to bring Victoria back to check on me.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded.

‘I was coming to see you,’ I said, cradling my forearm. ‘To apologise. I’m sorry, Vic. For everything. I’ve been an idiot and I want to make it up to you. Please don’t leave.’

I pursed my lips and tried my best to look endearing. Judging by Victoria’s reaction, it had the opposite effect.

‘Leave? I’m not leaving.’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

She looked genuinely cross with me. I felt genuinely bemused.

‘But I could hear you packing your things,’ I said.

She clucked her tongue and hooked a hand under my armpit, hoisting me upright like a nurse who’d been trained by the army – the enemy army. ‘No, Charlie, you could hear me
un
packing.’

‘Eh?’

‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘you didn’t think I’d come unprepared, did you?’

‘Huh?’

‘Charlie, I’ve spent time with you in two cities now, and each time you’ve involved me in mayhem and murder. So let’s just say that while I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed by your behaviour, I’m not entirely surprised by it, either. In fact, I’m really rather pleased that I anticipated that something like this might happen.’

‘You anticipated that I’d become involved in a bomb plot?’

She sighed and shepherded me back to my bed, pushing me firmly down onto the mattress with her hands on my shoulders.

‘Wait here,’ she said.

‘Where else am I going to go?’

She made for the door, then glanced backwards over her shoulder. ‘Oh, and do cover yourself up. I can see far more than either of us would prefer.’

Ah, hell. I rearranged the covers and did my best not to blush while I waited for her return. I didn’t succeed. My cheeks were flushed by the time she came back to my room with a pigskin document wallet in her hand. She fixed me in the eye and flipped the wallet open.

‘What the bloody hell is that?’ I asked.

Victoria grinned. ‘Thought you’d be impressed.’

‘It’s a little something I picked up back home,’ Victoria told me, walking her fingers over the contents of the document wallet. ‘There’s this wonderful boutique near London Bridge. They deal in all kinds of spy gear, and they also do a nifty line in self-defence. The gentleman in the shop told me it’s called “weaponising oneself”.’

She wasn’t kidding. The range of equipment strapped into the case was quite astonishing. A folding knife, a telescopic baton, a snub-nosed gun with the word
Taser
along the barrel, a collection of cuffs for hands and ankles and thumbs, plus much more besides. Each tool had its own particular nook in the case, and each was neatly strapped into position – like an executive washbag gone rogue.

‘Christ, Vic, you’ve got yourself a mini bloody armoury. How on earth did you get it through airport security?’

‘Ah, yes.’ She held up a finger. ‘I had to pay a little extra, but the shopkeeper was able to use a local contact as a courier. This was waiting for me at Marco Polo when I arrived.’

‘
I
was waiting for you when you arrived.’

She tapped her nose. ‘But I went to powder this, remember?’

I did remember, now that she mentioned it. I’d been a tad irritated at the time, not least because she’d insisted on wheeling her suitcase into the ladies’ washroom with her – almost as if I couldn’t be trusted with her bag.

‘I can see it rings a bell,’ she said, smiling at my expression. ‘It just so happens that a young woman approached me in one of the cubicles. All most clandestine.’

‘Bloody hell. Must have cost you a fortune.’